A Gathering Word
by helenamarkos
Summary: A collection of short oneshots. Characters, ratings and pairings vary. Continuous
1. It's Not Really That Funny

_**Disclaimer:**__ Inuyasha and its characters are not mine. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Biz. I receive no compensation for fan fiction._

_**A/N:**__ These stories are exercises in theme, style and structure. Please do not flame based on pairings. If you are going to roast me, I ask that you do it in a constructive manner._

**Genre:** Introspective, Angst

**Characters:** Inuyasha, Sesshomaru

**Warning:** None

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** Sesshomaru's father had a dangerous sense of humor.

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It's Not Really That Funny 

In the dim light before the dawn, as the morning doves shook the sleep from their eyes, a young lord of the dogs stood motionless before his infant brother. Wide eyed and mouthed, the tiny hanyou stared with silent curiosity as his visitor knelt beside his bedding. Inuyasha was too small to remember the way his brother's eyes glowed then, his expression flickering between indifference and murder.

Sesshomaru reached for the boy, and his movement spoke of intent, but he did no more than run a dangerous claw along the child's face. Inuyasha, perhaps sensing the peril he faced, did not move, but held the steady, steely gaze of his older sibling with all the determination a week old hanyou child could accomplish.

"It is because of you," the quiet tenor of Sesshomaru's voice cut the silence, "that our father is dead, little brother."

Inuyasha flicked a downy ear, blinking slowly and yawning in the endearing way that only the very young can yawn.

"You cannot comprehend the trouble you have caused me," he continued in a menacing whisper, "I have every reason to see you out of this world."

Sesshomaru's claws had returned to his lap as he sat with the boy, a visible war being waged in his eyes. The young lord would not lower himself to kill a hanyou infant. Still he sat, frustrated, idly caressing the hilt of his impotent sword.

As Sesshomaru debated infanticide, he quietly realized that the enemies of the Inu no Taisho were coming for him, and with them the challenges for title of western lord. He was simply too young to avoid it. While he slept, they would plot. While he fought them, more would gather. His future was looking increasingly bloody, even by his violent standards, and the only means to defend his territory and life was bequeathed to an infant that could do no more than drool and wave a chubby fist at his foe.

"Truly, our father had a mind for comedy," Sesshomaru muttered darkly. He gathered himself up and swept silently out of the room, cursing his overdeveloped sense of honor and underdeveloped arsenal.


	2. Pieces of Memory

_**Disclaimer:**__ Inuyasha and its characters are not mine. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Biz. I receive no compensation for fan fiction._

_**A/N:**__ These stories are exercises in theme, style and structure. Please do not flame based on pairings. If you are going to roast me, I ask that you do it in a constructive manner._

**Genre:** Romance, Tragedy

**Characters:** Rin, Sesshomaru

**Warning:** Sexual References, Character Death

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** His memory was long.

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Pieces of Memory 

In the beginning, there were broken teeth, set crooked in a grin split across her face. Then there was a broken body, split open and seeping into the muddy ground. He found worth in his worthless sword that day, though it would be many years before he recognized it.

Eyes flashed with dogged determination as she parted the water with a flick of her elbow. A displaced fish flapped helplessly on the summer shore. She stood, three feet taller then when he first met her, and impaled her helpless supper. Limbs grew long and dark, while her spirit grew wild and free.

Her hair formed a dark arc in the sky as she threw back her head. He settled his remaining hand in the damp small of her back, leaned up and drew his tongue across the hot column of her throat. The salt of her skin slid down his throat as he slid inside her heat. In the musky August twilight he found her all over again and they tumbled through the darkness together.

After she had walked too far for her feet, he cradled her in his lap. Gazing through the layers of time that had collected in creases on her skin, seeing only the kind child, the accomplished youth, the fiery woman, the wise gentle soul that had wandered the earth with him for a time, he finally confessed what she meant to him.

At the end of the dream, he gave her the only home she had known since she abandoned her lonely hut in childhood. In the cool spring morning, surrounded by wind and memory, he stood before Rin's grave, tucking each strand of her around his heart. He would not forget her.


	3. Injury

_**Disclaimer:**__ Inuyasha and its characters are not mine. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Biz. I receive no compensation for fan fiction._

_**A/N:**__ These stories are exercises in theme, style and structure. Please do not flame based on pairings. If you are going to roast me, I ask that you do it in a constructive manner._

**Genre:** Introspective, Angst

**Characters:** Sessmom, Inu No Taisho

**Warning:** Suggestive

**Rating:** PG-13

**Summary:** Something gained is not always treasured.

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Injury 

She couldn't say that she was surprised.

It had been nearly ten decades since they traded words, and those had been clipped and brief. Their son was grown, off to wander the lands of his forefathers, honed in bloodshed. There had been no reason for them to speak, and she was never one to pursue something without reason.

She understood the attraction.

Yokai court was tricky business, filled with empty promises and half-hearted allies. The best ties were bound in the marriage bed and sealed with offspring. This was how their bond was formed. In a breeding ground of backhanded compliments and halfhearted promises, she had found his honest cadence, if not endearing, at least refreshing. He had no reason to placate. No yokai could stand against his formidable strength. He was ruthless and he ruled his hard-won territory with a grip of solid steel.

And he was a cocky bastard, this Inu No Taisho. For a young upstart warlord that always chased a challenge, what better challenge existed than the aloof daughter of an adversary?

"My frosty princess," he crooned in her ear, his hot breath curling at her neck, "I will thaw you yet." He wrapped his thick arm around her slender waist, grinding against her all too suggestively. It was the first time in her memory that someone could garner a reaction from her. She broke contact and spun, her arm following the motion, slapping him clear across the face. Everything stilled, the festivities around them forgotten. She met his gaze with a cold expression; his stone faced anger marred by an ever-reddening handprint.

"Hentai," she smiled a cool smile at him then, and he returned it.

She was not sure when the fire had left them.

Perhaps it had been after their son was born, after she had fulfilled her duty towards him, and his continued interest was not necessary. Or maybe it was even sooner than that, after he had gained her favor, when she writhed beneath him, a battle won. She was territory secured and soon forgotten.

He came and went as he pleased. After Sesshomaru came of age, she saw him even less, and her son went with him to train and gather strength of his own. She paced the halls of her fortress in the sky with idle disinterest. She kept her fighting skills sharp, patrolling the surrounding territory, and kept her loneliness to herself. There was no one to listen to her anyway.

She had grown used to his absence.

He told her that he desired passion. He said that her heart was too frigid, that she stifled him beneath her remote façade. She wanted to tell him that he had earned that response from her. There were only so many dalliances she could take before she shut down from his affections completely. She had aimed to make him suffer, to make him as lonely as she had become, but she forgot the power he wielded, not just brute strength, but charisma. When she heard about his human concubine, she refused to behave irrationally; she would not let him goad that manner of reaction from her.

"Go," she told him calmly, "you have your son and he is nearly grown, our alliance was sealed with that. There is nothing to bind you to me."

She watched him walk away, enveloped by the winter night like a phantom. The ghost of their union devoured by a lowly mortal woman, a brief memory.

When he left her, she couldn't say she was surprised. The tears did surprise her.


	4. Luck

_**Disclaimer:**__ Inuyasha and its characters are not mine. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Biz. I receive no compensation for fan fiction._

_**A/N:**__ These stories are exercises in theme, style and structure. Please do not flame based on pairings. If you are going to roast me, I ask that you do it in a constructive manner._

**Genre:** Dark!fic with a hint of light

**Characters:** Inuyasha, Izaoi, Kagome (kinda)

**Warning:** Character Death

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** Fate is a fickle mistress.

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Luck 

When he was very small, his mother would wrap him up in the voluminous sleeves of her fine kimonos. He would snuggle into her gentle lap and bat at the cloth as it billowed around him in colorful silk forests. Though the other children did not play with him, he still had a kind and good-hearted mother to play with. While he watched other mothers steer their offspring towards waiting nannies, he had his mother's undivided attention. He could not deny his luck.

In the end, she had grown dough soft. He watched her bloat and pale, the whites of her eyes turned muddy yellow, the lustrous ink of her hair graying and fine. Soon she could pull it out in great chunks clutched pitifully in her bony fingers. She would mutter nonsense, tossing her head. Sometimes she would speak of his great father, a terrible white apparition in his mind's eye. She would clutch him to her breast, and his downy ears would twitch, as she would mutter nonsense on the wind, combing his hair with long, weary strokes of her nails. He could smell the stale reek of death gather ominously on her skin; coating her body like the fine silks she once wore. Though he had never smelled death before, he knew she was not meant long for this world. He would snuggle closer, ignoring the death smell and her involuntary shudders, searching out what remained of his mother's scent.

The priest would paste sutras around her bed eyeing him with suspicious eyes when she called out to him, mad with fever.

"He has done this to her," the voices would whisper, cutting the air with venom, "a demon's child, he curses his own mother with bad luck."

It was no surprise to him when they tossed him into the night, his face still wet with grief. Inuyasha stood, turned towards the darkness and walked forward into his lonely destiny, ready to face whatever his luck might bring him. His ears still rang with the word "half breed."

Many, many years later, after betrayal and trickery and murder, Inuyasha sat beneath the quiet boughs of the god tree, a lazy arm around Kagome as she snuggled into his fire rat kimono while cradling their infant daughter, and considered his good luck.


	5. Dedication

_**Disclaimer:**__ Inuyasha and its characters are not mine. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Biz. I receive no compensation for fan fiction._

_**A/N:**__ These stories are exercises in theme, style and structure. Please do not flame based on pairings. If you are going to roast me, I ask that you do it in a constructive manner._

**Genre:** Introspection, WAFF

**Characters:** Sesshomaru, Sessmom, Inu No Taisho

**Warning:** None

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** He was determined to fill large shoes.

Dedication 

The lantern was burning low and still the boy labored over his work. He gripped the brush between his forefinger and thumb with such intensity that the bamboo threatened to snap. Sesshomaru squinted at his last line of characters and wrinkled his nose. They were not quite right, and his sensei had insisted on perfection when he left his class this afternoon.

"Stupid old man," Sesshomaru muttered. He covered a cavernous yawn with his ink-stained hand and leaned in towards the scroll, trying to decide if he needed to rewrite the last section or if the composition was salvageable. He could feel the prickly burn of sleep along his eyes, and he blinked to chase the weariness away.

Sesshomaru let his gaze wander over the scroll on a haphazard pattern, crossing his eyes until the intricate characters became a smear of black across his vision. In his mind they swirled and warped into the foaming rapids of the Kikiwari River as they crashed against the great wooden pillars his father had set into the center. He could hear the steady burbling of the water and feel the solid oak beneath his tabi socks. He balanced his small practice bow in a loose grip and he kept his muscles relaxed, prepared for the assault he knew was coming.

"Watch your left guard, boy!" his Great Father bellowed while he swung an enormous bow low to sweep at Sesshomaru's feet. Leaping gracefully to the left, Sesshomaru landed single-footed on the pillar next to him. Again the bow came down, and he blocked the strike. His teeth rattled from the force of the blow. He parried, turning so the force of the attack would unbalance his father. Then the bow was swinging towards his temple, duck, turn, leap, block. He was on a far pillar now, nearly to the shore. This trunk had been set purposefully loose, and Sesshomaru teetered slightly on his precarious perch. His father wasted no time, and was lunging for his position.

"Again," his father ordered, and Sesshomaru did it again, hopping from one perch to the next like a sparrow, weaving through his father's attacks like a squirrel. Sesshomaru never felt so small as when he sparred against his monstrous sire. Every move his father made was purposeful and swift. There was no room for error. He knew that it would take much work to remotely approach his father's prowess in battle, and Sesshomaru took his responsibility as heir to the Great Yokai's legacy very seriously.

"To the left," Sesshomaru muttered low. Fast asleep, his cheek to the delicate rice paper, he continued to do battle in his mind, "block, spin, _mumble mumble."_

The Lady of the West leaned over her sleeping son with a rueful expression. A small puddle of drool had blurred Sesshomaru's last few characters, and she had no doubt the rest of his composition was a black imprint on the side of his face. Sesshomaru's mother pulled a light blanket from her son's untouched futon and laid it gently over his slumped shoulders.

"Watch your left guard," he sighed. His mother snuffed the lantern and smiled.


	6. His Own Path

_**Disclaimer:**__ Inuyasha and its characters are not mine. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Biz. I receive no compensation for fan fiction._

_**A/N:**__ These stories are exercises in theme, style and structure. Please do not flame based on pairings. If you are going to roast me, I ask that you do it in a constructive manner._

**Genre:** Introspective

**Characters:** Sesshomaru, Jaken

**Warning:** None

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** The end of one empire is the beginning of another...

His Own Path 

There is smoke and ash and a tangible emptiness where he knows there should be loss. Sesshomaru, firstborn son of the Dog General, gazes upon the smoldering remains of his father's once-great kingdom and feels nothing for the lost courtesans or elaborate palaces, only the heady rush of his own power.

'I will build my own kingdom,' he thinks haughtily as he gazes into the burning sky, 'and it will be even mightier than yours, father.'

His sire's vassals turn to him now, but he will have none of them. "My father is dead," he says, "find your own way." Sesshomaru will not follow in the footsteps of a ghost.

When the imp trails after him, following for several days, he decides that he is worthy. Sesshomaru tosses the gnarled staff of skulls at the tiny yokai. "If you can use it," he says enigmatically, "it is yours." This creature has followed because he wants to follow _Sesshomaru_, not the son of the Inu No Taisho. Jaken is small, but with the staff he is powerful, and takes care of the lesser tasks that Sesshomaru cannot be bothered with.

'My empire has to start somewhere,' he thinks as Jaken's eyes shimmer with unadulterated adoration. The imp clutches the staff to his breast, and hurries after the young lord's shadow.


	7. Between the Lines

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and its characters are not mine

_**Disclaimer:**__ Inuyasha and its characters are not mine. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Biz. I receive no compensation for fan fiction._

_**A/N:**__ These stories are exercises in theme, style and structure. Please do not flame based on pairings. If you are going to roast me, I ask that you do it in a constructive manner._

**Genre:** Romance, Drabble

**Characters:** Sesshomaru, Rin

**Warning:** Innuendo

**Rating:** PG-13

**Word Count:** 222

**Summary:** There are many things about him that she doesn't understand...yet.

**Between the Lines**

She could never be sure if they were real, that brand of indigo, those red slashes, the burning line of magenta across his eyelids. They seemed out of place on such a pale, translucent face. As her feet followed his, and days turned to years, she grew accustomed to them as she grew accustomed to all the little nuances that endeared him to her. There were days that she thought on them very little, and others that she spent her time devoted to their study, as though she decode them and unlock the guarded secrets of his dark yokai heart.

Despite her curiosity, she never touched them, neither as a child or that awkward half-woman she became. The threat of his displeasure was enough to still her brazen fingers.

But then it was he, her fierce guardian, who came to her in the stillness of the night with lust drunk eyes. All her youthful fear was swallowed by the desperate yearnings of her heart. She tested her tongue along each fine line, breathed a whisper against his brow and each lid was softly kissed. In this way she made those marks, as mysterious and ethereal as him, her own. And with each gasp and every whispered sigh, she ended the experiment he began those years ago with an experiment of her own.


	8. Sinister

Disclaimer: Inuyasha and its characters are not mine

_**Disclaimer:**__ Inuyasha and its characters are not mine. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi and Biz. I receive no compensation for fan fiction._

_**A/N:**__ These stories are exercises in theme, style and structure. Please do not flame based on pairings. If you are going to roast me, I ask that you do it in a constructive manner._

**Genre:** Introspective

**Characters:** Inu tachi

**Warning:** None

**Rating:** PG-13

**Word Count:** 429

**Summary:** Not what it seems...

**Sinister**

Mortals were such simple things. With well-placed words he wove a web of deceit so tight that no man could escape it. The hanyou, perhaps, had come the closest, but always there was a well-laid trap and an angelic face to fend him off. It began with a death, and it would end with a death, he would see to that; and then his carefully laid plans would come to fruition.

The gargantuan form of Naraku twisted and swelled around the darkened jewel. Inuyasha and Kagome held their ground, while Sango and Miroku tried to fend the shouki off as best they could. The blades of the Meidou cut a path into the spider's massive body, while the devastating attack of the Bakusaiga ate away at the swollen flesh that stood in Sesshomaru's way. It seemed the end was eminent.

Shippo observed the proceedings from a safe perch, well out of harms way.

'Soon,' he thought, 'that foolish beast will be destroyed, and then the jewel will be mine!' The image of his murdered friends flashed briefly in his wicked yokai mind.

Kagome would be the easiest. She was always too compassionate. Only a fool would take a kitsune at face value. The monk and slayer would be disposed of easily as well. No doubt, if they even survived this encounter, their subsequent marriage would keep them preoccupied. Inuyasha would have to be the first to go, though. He was the most perceptive when it came to yokai, and would most likely be harder to kill if Kagome was dead. Shippo was in no mood to deal with an enraged, grieving dog hanyou.

It would be best if he waited until the next full moon, when he could kill them in one fell swoop. Sesshomaru and his entourage would be no problem. Inuyasha's enigmatic older brother would most likely be gone before the last ash from Naraku's charred body touched the ground. And how hard could Kohaku be to kill if he stuck around? He was just a boy, and in reality, a human boy was no match for a fox...not once he took his true form.

Shippo wondered idly what their blood would taste like...and fantasized about Inuyasha's gurgled death cries. Yes, he would enjoy revenging the beatings he was given tenfold.

"They'll never see it coming," he snickered wickedly. He though of all these long months of preparation, of staging his father's death, the false smiles and hollow tears, and he smiled a smile so cruel, it was worthy of Sesshomaru.

"This will be my greatest prank yet."


	9. Lights in the Dark

_AN: Written for the online livejournal community mfsanctuary_

MFSanctuary **Week 25**: Fireworks

**Title**: Lights in the Dark

**Word Count**: 99

**Summary**: Some things, no matter how brief, are worth the trouble.

The first time he sees them, he is mildly startled. Sesshomaru has always shied from large human settlements, so when the sky over Kyoto bursts with fireworks he cannot help but be surprised. Rin's slender hand, dried and creased with age, slides gently into his. Hazarding a glance, he finds that he is as captivated with her as she is with the spectacle in the heavens. When it is over, and the last twinkling light fades, she turns to him and smiles.

"Wasn't this a grand idea?" she laughs. Sesshomaru squeezes her hand gently, his eyes glistening with a smile of their own.

"Indeed," he replies.


End file.
